The Minimum Effective Dose

What if fixing your business started with one simple question: What’s the real problem? In this episode of Revved UP, host Gary Leeman sits down with Steve Crowley, co-founder of Service Physics, to unpack how lean thinking can transform service work—from chaotic kitchens to national chains. Steve shares the unexpected moment that introduced him to lean, explains how to avoid boiling the ocean with tools, and reveals why clarity and right-sizing are leadership superpowers. Packed with wisdom, humor, and real-world examples, this is a must-listen for any leader trying to simplify complexity and create meaningful results.

 

 

About Steve Crowley

Steve Crowley is a seasoned operations strategist and engineer with a passion for transforming service environments from the frontline up. As Principal and co-founder of Service Physics, he helps multi-location brands—in industries from restaurants and healthcare to retail—simplify complexity and unlock performance by embedding lean methodologies within real-world operations. A former Starbucks leader and Lean Innovation champion, Steve brought lean thinking to global initiatives like the Mobile Order & Pay rollout before advancing to AB‑InBev’s innovation arm, ZX Ventures, where he refined the extraction of impact through minimum effective dose approaches. With a foundational BS in Hospitality Administration from Boston University and an MBA from Tennessee Tech, Steve blends academic rigor with frontline experience. He’s a hands‑on consultant who doesn’t stop at strategy—he embeds with teams to untangle bottlenecks, apply data-driven discipline, and cultivate servant leadership within organizations. On Revved UP, Steve shares stories from his lean journey, offers practical tools for leaders tackling real service‑industry challenges, and highlights how small, intentional changes can fuel breakthrough results—without overwhelming teams.

 

Expanded Key Takeaways

1. Lean is a problem-solving mindset, not a toolbox.
   Steve explains that lean should be focused on solving specific problems, not just implementing tools like value stream mapping or visual signals without context.

2. Start with a minimum effective dose.
   Many companies fail at lean because they try to do everything at once. Steve’s philosophy is to find the smallest change with the biggest impact—and build from there.

3. Time is not waste—it’s a cost.
   One of the most debated points in lean, Steve argues that time shouldn't be categorized as waste, but as a cost caused by other forms of waste like motion or defects.

4. Clarity is kindness in leadership.
   Lack of clarity creates waste. Steve shares how their internal lean coach helped them get hyper-clear on weekly goals, even pushing them to visualize tasks.

5. Don’t LARP your leadership.
   Steve warns against mimicking big-company behavior. Instead, leaders should be authentic, intentional, and design processes that fit the current scale of their business.

6. Servant leadership isn’t optional.
   Especially in service industries, leadership must be rooted in being present, authentic, useful, vulnerable, and accepting—qualities Steve’s company actively develops.

7. Small wins validate big changes.
   Steve shares how reducing friction in restaurants often results in record sales—without the team even realizing how much more efficient they’ve become.

8. Avoid the labor death spiral.
   Cutting labor to reduce costs often backfires. Instead, create capacity through motion elimination or better scheduling, then use that capacity to train or serve more customers.

 

Chapter Markers:

• 00:00 – Gary’s intro & Steve’s chaotic weekend dad-life

• 03:00 – Steve’s lean origin story at Starbucks

• 08:00 – Becoming a missionary for better service work

• 10:00 – Why Lean feels uncomfortable at first

• 14:00 – What is Lean really? Problem-solving, not just tools

• 19:30 – The 7 forms of waste (TIMWOOD) explained with real-world examples

• 30:00 – Why naming waste is powerful

• 37:00 – Entrepreneurship lessons & clarity in leadership

• 42:00 – Breaking out of the mimic trap

• 45:00 – Why Service Physics stayed bootstrapped

• 48:00 – Identifying true servant leaders

• 53:00 – Growing into a bigger role without scaling too fast

• 59:00 – Cool client tools: Meta Ray-Ban glasses for frontline POV

• 1:03:00 – Scrum of scrums: Celebrating the work every 2 weeks

• 1:06:00 – Right-sizing your efforts

• 1:09:00 – Steve’s favorite moment: record-breaking performance that felt easy

 

Keywords:

lean consulting, lean principles, lean thinking, service physics, Steve Crowley, Gary Leeman, Revved UP podcast, lean management, restaurant operations, seven forms of waste, TIMWOOD, minimum effective dose, service industry leadership, operational efficiency, servant leadership, lean startup, restaurant improvement, lean training, lean problem solving, reduce waste, lean transformation, clarity in leadership, bootstrapped business, entrepreneurship lessons, hospitality industry process improvement, business coaching for service teams